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St. Louis County to Seek Death Penalty for Bowman

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — The St. Louis County prosecutor says he’ll seek the death penalty again for a man whose previous capital sentence was overturned last year by the Missouri Supreme Court.

Gregory Bowman was convicted in 2009 of raping, strangling and cutting the throat of 16-year-old Velda Joy Rumfelt. The state Supreme Court sustained Bowman’s conviction but ruled that prosecutors improperly mentioned that Bowman had been convicted of two Illinois murders that were overturned.

Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch he could find no such mention in the transcript from Bowman’s trial, only evidence that the state said linked him to the Illinois crimes.

Two lawyers with the capital litigation division of the Missouri public defender’s office are representing Bowman. They declined comment after a case hearing Thursday.